MPs had openly spoken of how Brexit meant such a slap-dash approach could be taken further still, with Jacob Rees-Mogg – a prominent right-wing MP – musing how Britain’s departure from the EU ofered the chance to further reduce environmental and safety standards, ‘We could say, if it’s good enough in India, it’s good enough for here. There ’s nothing to stop that.’
John McDonnell, Labour’s shadow chancellor, caused consternation among the same establishment which takes Rees-Mogg so seriously when he labelled Grenfell ‘social murder’ claiming that ‘political decisions were made which resulted in the deaths of these people ’. Yet it was Clive Lewis who incurred the greatest wrath of all when he tweeted an image of the destroyed tower along with the words ‘burn neoliberalism, not people ’. That drew gasps of anger from some quarters, but perhaps that was because those eager to defend the status quo grasped that much of the public would agree with the Labour MP.
While not immediately apparent – such is the intention with a political settlement presenting itself as reality – Grenfell was a result of overt political choices. The regulatory changes introduced by Thatcher and extended under New Labour represented a core feature of neoliberal ideology: optimal outcomes are more likely the less you interfere and allow market equilibrium to do its job. That same pernicious ideology had previously provided cover for outsourcing, privatisation and regeneration, despite the facts speaking against it. Now it had led to people dying in their beds.
Despite the magnitude of these issues, a break with all of this is not only plausible but increasingly easy to distinguish. As well as a handbrake on an increasingly dysfunctional present, it is also the first step to FALC. Its primary features are threefold, consisting in the re-localisation of economies through progressive procurement and municipal protectionism; socialising finance and creating a network of local and regional banks and, finally, the introduction of a set of universal basic services (UBS) which take much of the national economy into public ownership. While some of this will resemble the nationalisations of the previous century, much of it will not.
Fundamental Principles
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